Airline to start controversially weighing travellers

Airline Finnair will ask passengers to be weighed at the departure gate for data collection purposes.

As of Monday (February 5), the policy has been implemented at Helsinki Airport from now until May where the data will "only be used to optimise Finnair’s current aircraft balance calculations".

However, if this is something passengers are uncomfortable with, there's no need to worry as the request is completely voluntary and anonymous.

The scheme will take place at both the gates of long-haul flights as well as European journeys too, and over 600 passengers have already volunteered to take part at the moment, The Guardian reported.

Furthermore, the purpose of this request is to ensure the airline does not exceed the set maximum weight for a safe take-off and Finnair has used average weights determined by its measurements since 2018.

But every five years, the aviation authorities request for these figures to be updated and so now new data is needed to ensure the balance calculations are accurate for the next five years from 2025 onwards.

Satu Munnukka, head of ground processes at Finnair said on the policy: "In the previous measurements five years ago, a good number of volunteers wanted to participate in the weighing, and we hope to have a good sample of volunteers, both business and leisure travellers, also this time, so that we can get the most accurate information possible for important balance calculations."

He added that participants can have "peace of mind" because the airline does not ask for the name or booking number and "Only the customer service agent working at the measuring point can see the total weight."

It's not the first time an airline has requested passengers to be weighed since 10,000 passengers flying with Air New Zealand were asked to do this in June, followed by travellers on Korean Air in August - both for similar reasons.

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